This is a non-canonical, unofficial interpretation of 21st century PISCES, the British intelligence agency that polices the Empire of ghosties, ghoulies and non-Euclidean beasties in Delta Green the RPG. Thanks must go to mellonbread, whose scenarios focused on the group's collapse into factions has served as the grist for my own setting's somewhat different mill. Which produces Obtusebread.
If you don't know the secret history of PISCES and actually care, you probably shouldn't read this...
But there is another more terrible truth. In 1968 an apparently successful operation to clear out the depraved village of Goatswood opened PISCES to alien infiltration. Parasitic alien puritans, trapped on Earth and known as the Shan, subverted PISCES command structure, turning the agency into a tool to destroy worshipers of other gods and find some means of escape from our dying world.
This remained the case until three years ago, when PISCES rank-and-file finally uncovered the rot within their organization. A new conspiracy grew, as field-officers and support staff slowly banded together in readiness for a civil-war. Whoever green-lit what would later become known as the “Unpleasantness” is either dead or extraordinarily tight-lipped, but on a brisk Summer day, as PISCES’ department heads met in supposed secrecy and security, someone gave the order for action.
Many Shan died that day. No few humans too. And as the purge swept through PISCES offices and safe-houses, men and women held down their screaming, begging colleagues, as power-tools bit into their skulls to let the sunlight in. No few old grudges or personal hatreds ended that day too, with a trepanation or a bullet, followed by the claim the unfortunate victim wasn’t truly human.
Having seized power and shown their fellows what lingered in the shadows, over the next few weeks the Section's non-Shan hosts led a great witch-hunt - a period of detentions, interrogations and arbitrary arrests. With the power of the state behind it, PISCES had little to fear from the public finding out. Those who did thought it was an intelligence shake-up, a mole-hunt like back in the 1980s.
No Shan is believed to have survived the purge.
PISCES did survive.
Barely.
PISCES Today: PISCES has changed a lot since its house cleaning of three years back. The Shan may have been evil, vicious religious fanatics but their over-aggressive actions kept Britain safe - no cult survived long under the insects' gaze. Now PISCES plays whack-a-mole, its far more human understandings of the occult unable to keep apace with a surge in new religious groups and esoteric dabblers, or the return of monsters whose warding seals and sigils are no longer being renewed.
With the Shan gone - and as a result of the purge's more violent actions - large amounts of data have been lost, including safe-houses, installations, rituals and individuals. The insects, with their long-lived memories, seem to have stored much of it within themselves rather than writing it down.
Section leadership is now unknown, with the head – “R” – a faceless entity communicating solely by email. Some of the old-hands don’t even believe there is an “R” any more and contend some sort of divisional council or junta holds sway.
Staffing is at all-time low, with post-purge resignations and lay-offs in droves; out-sourcing has increased, with a reliance on private firms for support staff; ties with MI6 and MI5 are fractured and strained; Severn Aerospace, once PISCES' big money-maker, has been reduced to a shadow of its former self. Brexit and the eradication of the Shan has shorn it of much of its competitiveness and cutting-edge technology.
Today PISCES is small, fractitious, untrustworthy and distrusted; a coterie of old hands who see Shan behind every curtain and young newbies who find themselves woefully out of their depth.
Field staff are often recruited into PISCES directly (having shown high aptitude in college or when applying for the police or intelligence services). Others get tapped from the likes of MI5, MI6, GCHQ, the military etc. after stumbling upon the unnatural. Latter entrants are viewed with rather more suspicion than external newbies. "A man cannot have two masters," as the saying goes, and the good old days when PISCES held the whip-hand above the Joint Intelligence Committees has long since passed. The Section has been infiltrated before. It wouldn't want to have it happen again.
PISCES also keeps four groups of specialists:
- the first are Talents, literally psychics. Their powers are often relatively weak and their numbers are few and far between, but PISCES keeps them because they make an excellent early-warning system. When psychics start bleeding from their eyes, something bad is about to take place.
- Hypergeometricists (or Spoonies) are individuals trained in rituals and magic. They normally stay up in rural Scotland, far away from normal people, unless they're needed to kickstart a banishment spell or other esoteric skill. Spoonies are strange people and often a bit cracked.
- Jaguar Teams are SAS teams who've been read-on to PISCES anti-occult remit. In the past, the Shan used Jaguar Teams as their own private special-forces, having them take down cults, magicians and nosy individuals with extreme prejudice. Today they're who PISCES officers call for when they face something that regular firearms just won't work on.
- Consultants are, unsurprisingly, consultants. Some are occultists or sorcerers who were given the choice between working for the government or taking a bullet in the head; others are experts in specialist fields that PISCES wouldn't need on the payroll but would require at a pinch (like epidemiologists). They have only the most rudimentary knowledge of PISCES' background and powers and are typically unarmed.
Operational Parameters: PISCES works something like this - information about a potential unnatural situation is seen in the wild by the police or intelligence services and passed up the chain until it reaches a desk-officer in the Section. A field-team is sent to investigate.
If the problem is a cult, officers infiltrate it, ascertain if it's a problem, and then subvert it if necessary. This normally means breaking it from the inside by sowing confusion, falsifying evidence of crimes and so on. If a cult has not yet reached a level where it isdangerous, civil authorities might be used to wreck it (having police arrest or harrass members, getting local councils to implement zoning restrictions on temples etc.). 99% of the time, removing the cult leader led the organization to break up.
If an obvious unnatural locale or entity is to blame, field-officers investigate the circumstances by digging through old records, talking to locals, researching lore. Once a solution is discovered, they deal with it as required - preferably with no come-backs on the Crown.
Only in the most dire situations do field-agents request "technical support"
from Manor occult specialists or specialist anti-incursion Jaguar Teams. Such circumstances are reserved for the most serious of incidents, usually when high collateral damage has already occurred or is highly likely.
Equipment: In the field, PISCES operatives typically carry a Security Service (MI5) identity card, an ASP telescoping baton, and a can of PAVA spray (CS). All tasers and firearms are controlled through sign-outs and special dispensation from PISCES HQ.
Leaving aside bog-standard Q-cars and beat-up transit surveillance vans, the standard mode of transport for field-officers is the up-kitted BMW E70. Modded with evasive brakes and steering, a computer system connected to the HOLMES II police network, and hardier bodywork for ramming (and being rammed), Section cars are also fitted with a gun safe in the boot.
Only officers with a minimum of 40% Firearms are authorized to draw firearms without special dispensation. All field-officers are given rudimentary training in pistols and long-arms and entitled to use them in an emergency, however.
Each car safe contains a small man-portable "Enforcer" door-ram, two stab-vests, one ballistic shield, two SIG-P226 pistols and a pair of G36C rifles (each weapon has two fully-loaded magazines). If the safe is opened (often referred to as "going to Plan-G") without Control being informed, a silent alarm is triggered at PISCES HQ. If Control’s follow-up call to the officers on the ground is ignored, armed police are diverted to the vehicle’s location.
Like their mundane SAS counterparts, PISCES’ specialist Jaguar Teams field a remarkable variety of weaponry. Typically they use L119A2 CQB rifles and SIG-229 pistols, with specialized equipment like carbine-mounted “Masterkey” shotguns, FN MINIMI machine-guns, H&K 40mm grenade launchers, and explosives called in based on the threat.
Legal Authority: PISCES is not a secret police in the same way the Gestapo or KGB were. It lacks formal legal police powers, including the right to arrest or detain suspects, and has traditionally relied upon local police to back them up when engaging with low-level cult activity. Most of the time this is fine: interrogations can bedone at police stations, particularly when the suspect has been arrested for real (or trumped-up) crimes.
Where a target is unlikely to make it to court - such as high-level hypergeometrists or unnatural entities - legal considerations regarding due process go out the window. This isn't carte-blanche for assassinations, but does allow for illegal black-bagging, enhanced interrogation and detention without trial. Such acts are meant to be signed-off by Control; a chain-of-command exists for doing things like this and paperwork needs to be blotted. In an emergency (and if there are no come-backs) a bit of heavy work is allowed
Nevertheless, Section operatives must be 100% sure there is no possibility they've got an incorrect target before they start acting improperly. The best means of making sure there are no future problems is to ensure a kidnapped target believes they were taken and interrogated by a non-PISCES third-party.
All Section officers have a right to self-defense when protecting themselves or another from harm, and retain the right to enact a citizen's arrest when a crime is seen. The force applied must be reasonable and reciprocal (you can't shoot a guy who's going to punch you, for instance, but you could shoot someone coming at you with a knife or a gun). In exceptional circumstances PISCES officers and Jaguar Team operatives are given Class-VII Authorization: a literal "license to kill" or assassination warrant that waives prosecution so long as only the subject listed was killed. It is not retroactive.
Punishments: PISCES officers who upset the higher-ups, the Gods as they are known, face punishment. Minor mistakes result in informal or formal warnings and docking of wages. More serious ones can end with demotion or transfers to unpopular postings (the worst is the Falkland Islands).
The ultimate punishment, however, is reserved for those who seem to be "disloyal." Disloyalty takes many shapes and forms, whether the apparent sabotage of a mission or engaging in acts the Control officer believes is attempting to undermine them in favor of a rival. PISCES is riven by factions and petty jealousies, and Control officers do not last long if they don't keep a tight rein on their teams.
The penalty for disloyalty to PISCES is trepanation - a holdover from the Unpleasantness, when drilling a hole in someone's head was the only way to ensure a Shan came out. It's a handy tactic. Not only is the individual still useable after recuperation, but they are permanently marked. Like the yakuza who cuts off their finger to show penance, the Section officer must accept the trepanation or be executed for potentially being under the control of an alien parasite.
There are no second-chances after trepanation. The only penalty after the drill-bit is the bullet.
One quick thing: promotion is misspelled.
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